Buying currency with cc ?

reclusive46

Lazyloki wrote: »

I thought the normal advice was the other way around - i.e. choose GBP so that the currency conversion is done at the CC end rather than the retailer who will almost certainly be worse.

No. You want to be charged in the currency in the currency of the country, so Visa/MC/Amex convert instead. If you opt for GBP your opting for the retailers exchange rate.

BMW51K

bengal-stripe wrote: »

You will be much better off, to use your CC for more or less all payments and carry only a little bit of cash for bus fares, street food etc. which you can draw from an ATM while you abroad. Do not use your CC to draw significant amounts of cash,either here or abroad.

You might want to advise your card that you will be abroad between those particular dates.

P.S. If you are offered the choice to have the card charged in USD or in GBP, always opt for Dollars. So you will benefit from the favourable exchange rate of your card.

Does it make sense to make sure I have a positive credit on a Halifax CC and then use it to withdraw even large amounts of cash abroad? Does that mean I avoid the 12.9% interest rate if I stay below the amount that I loaded? (The interest lost by keeping the cash in a savings account until the monthly statement is trivial)

reclusive46

BMW51K wrote: »

Does it make sense to make sure I have a positive credit on a Halifax CC and then use it to withdraw even large amounts of cash abroad? Does that mean I avoid the 12.9% interest rate if I stay below the amount that I loaded? (The interest lost by keeping the cash in a savings account until the monthly statement is trivial)

Its against the terms and conditions to pre-load the card.

Biggles

BMW51K wrote: »

Does it make sense to make sure I have a positive credit on a Halifax CC and then use it to withdraw even large amounts of cash abroad? Does that mean I avoid the 12.9% interest rate if I stay below the amount that I loaded? (The interest lost by keeping the cash in a savings account until the monthly statement is trivial)

As reclusive46 says, it's technically against your T&Cs; in practice, they may send the money back, cancel the card or stop you drawing on it when you most need it, though in practice I haven't seen that anyone has been penalised.

There is also the fact that the interest over a holiday of a week or two is also trivial.

lisyloo

i.e. choose GBP so that the currency conversion is done at the CC end rather than the retailer who will almost certainly be worse.

No you got it the wrong way round.
If you take lcoal currency from a machine and get charged in GBP then the bank owning the ATM with convert (usually in my experience with a 4% commissions).
If you get charged local currency then you'll get charged for exactly what you took e.g. take 100E and get charged 100E. Then your own bank will do the conversion sometimes at 0% commission.

Sometimes in the US or outside Europe the machine will charge you a small fee. This is different altogether and is a fixed fee e.g. $3.
This is for use of the machine and not currency conversion.
This will be stated.
I've not had this in Europe but have in both the US and Thailand.